


City of Lights

by carniferxus



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017), Riverdale (TV 2017) RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Roommates/Housemates, Anxiety Attacks, College, College AU, F/M, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Tissue Warning, more like a bunch of cute roommate au's mixed up with sadness, roommate au
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-20
Updated: 2017-06-26
Packaged: 2018-11-16 09:08:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,613
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11250012
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/carniferxus/pseuds/carniferxus
Summary: Betty Cooper comes to New York to start fresh, but when the city doesn't meet her indie-movie-expectations, she's forced to stand strong.Jughead Jones escapes his problematic past by following his dreams as he runs away from the awful perfect faces of the suburbs to somewhere he can be himself.In which two young adults find their way into the same apartment and same university, a story of how roommates became friends and even more.(basically, I'm Bughead trash)





	1. Arrival

**Author's Note:**

> it's been a while since I wrote fanfiction at all and i'm rusty so if you like where this story is going and you have any suggestions on how it should go on, feel free to reply!!!

When she got into the NYU journalism program, she didn't imagine it being like this. She imagined a minimalist life in a French café setting with one or two cats in a little rented apartment near the building, waking up to the cold yet comfortable New York weather to thirty minute runs and omelet recipes she'd seen on Pinterest as breakfast in company of green tea and a chill indie Spotify playlist on repeat on the background as she finished, calmly, writing essays.  

This was not that. It took her a week to realize that it was impossible and the semester hadn't even begun yet.  

When she moved away from Riverdale, away from her perfectionist family and her girl-next-door reputation, she had felt a relief that she wouldn't change for anything. Freedom was the right word, she realized as, even though it was past noon on a Saturday afternoon and she was still in her pajamas cleaning up the place before her new roommate appeared that afternoon, she breathed fearlessly. Even though part-time jobs were unpredictable and she knew close to nothing about the new roommate that would be arriving that afternoon (everything had been arranged by the landlord, an old lady who was nicer than most people in New York AND Riverdale, had welcomed her with a skin-care package and a fridge full of food, and had claimed her roommate was a really nice boy who was also a freshman at NYU) she was relaxed, a thing that was close to a miracle considering her anxiety medication prescription. Still, her medication didn't prepare her for when the apartment's door was knocked about three hours earlier and, although the house was already tidy, she was still on pink pajama shorts.   

She didn't know it was possible to get dressed so fast, throw everything off and put on a pair of jeans and a plain white blouse, hair in a ponytail and she was ready to go. She opened the door and greeted both the landlord and the new boy with a smile.   

"Betty, dearest, this is Jughead Jones. I think you'll find him a very charming young boy." Mrs. Nancy's voice made everything sound extremely sweet, but as Betty faced her future roommate a voice inside of her thought "Shit, we're polar opposites."   

Her mother would not have approved Jughead Jones in all his entirety. He had this bad boy look to himself that would have stolen more than a few looks back at her high school. His outfit would have put James Dean wannabes to shame, with a gray beanie and a black shirt underneath a cool colored flannel shirt. She wondered how someone could look so chilled with leather ankle boots in August.   

He offered her his hand to shake and she replied. The landlord left them on their own with a smile.   

"Are you from around here?" He asked as she led him to the room where he would be staying. The apartment was bigger than most of the others she had checked out, but she knew interaction and bonding were meant to be inevitable.   

She shook her head, "I'd never been a big city person. I used to live in a small town outside of the State."  

There was something close to surprise in his face, "That makes two of us, though I hope I can get used to this." She opened the door to his bedroom and the both entered.  

"It's pretty much packed with necessary furniture but Nancy said that if you want to change anything, considering we're staying here for at least a while, just ring her up and you can arrange something. The last drawer has some miscellaneous stuff, an emergency kit, some empty photo frames, new toothbrushes, and some light bulbs if yours burn. I'll leave you to your unpacking. I'll be in the kitchen if you need anything."  

She reached the kitchen, opening the fridge and staring at it in its fullness and considering how much easier it would be to just order a pizza. That's when Jughead Jones entered the room.  

"Would you like to share a pizza?" He asked, in a tone that made it seem they hadn't just met today.   

She smiled a little as she spoke; "Only if you are treating."   

  

  

Jughead's arrival had matched with the beginning of the academic term. Between classes, shifts at that awful café that was right between the university and an office that apparently only impatient people seemed to work at, and late library visits, she got to the apartment at around ten thirty pm on the worst days, which wasn't that late but summer seemed to have already been replaced by fall and cold weather by the first week of September which only made her late schedule bother her more. On the other hand, the rented apartment had a nice heating system that seemed to work steadily and quickly and none of her usually visited locations were further than a quarter of an hour apart of each other.  

About Jughead, she always seemed to beat him at getting early. She wasn't yet aware of where he worked, only that he was majoring in Contemporary Literature and creative writing, he had a tendency of staying up until late typing away stories and drinking previously-not-known-possible amounts of caffeine. Also, the boy had an appetite. Betty had bought a coffee machine before moving in and she was a decent cook. They got along, they were both tidy with the apartment's common areas and they seemed to be organized and precautious enough that after almost a month living together, the apartment wasn't completely trashed.   

They didn't know much about each other, at least until that futile Friday night. On the first day of living together, Jughead and she had established a set of rules over a shared box of pizza. Aside of the apartment organization, they had had a chat about schedules. Both of them being half-decent human being and half-sure that the other one wasn't a sociopath, they arrived at a mutual agreement of at least telling the other if they had late night plans, considering the fact that if one of them went apparently missing or something,  someone would have to call the cops.   

Apart from that, bonding wasn't something that had happened until that day.  

She should have gone home after her shift. She was feeling a little under the weather, but she needed to study and she was a Cooper, a cold and a little hotter-than-normal body temperature wouldn't stop her from acing her firsts evaluations. She popped a little Advil pill here and there throughout the day and kept on.   

The Bobst library sat a few blocks away from both her job and the apartment and seemed to be available until unearthly hours so of course, no one would've told her to leave that night when she seemed to have over-studied; no one but her own roommate over text messaging.  

(2 unread messages)   

 **JUGHEAD JONES-11.39pm: Are you even alive**  

 **JUGHEAD JONES -11.39pm: Isn't New York dangerous at this hours**  

"Oh shit," She mumbled, sitting up, tightening her ponytail and scrambling to grab all her belongings that were scattered on the library desk, not even caring about putting them neatly on her backpack.  

 **BETTY COOPER-11.40pm: I over-studied.**  

She got a reply faster than she could've been able to turn off the phone. Jughead Jones was a fast replier, or maybe, with her tiredness in consideration, everything was a little bit faster than expected.   

 **JUGHEAD JONES-11.40pm: At Bobst? I'll pick you up**  

 **BETTY COOPER-11.40pm: There's no need. I can walk.**  

 **JUGHEAD JONES-11.40pm: No way I'll let you on your own**  

**JUGHEAD JONES-11.41pm: I'll be there in five**


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know it's short but my exam week is coming up so I'm all over the place atm. comment what you think if you wanna and if you'd like to suggest something, it'd be lovely<3 I'll try to upload more by tomorrow

He must've run, she thought, considering his five minutes turned to be more like half of that. He texted her when he was outside, and only when she stepped out a shiver ran through her back, probably caused by the unexpected low temperature. "Who would've known you were such a gentleman?"  
  
She caught a smirk on his face before he told her, "I couldn’t just leave you alone and destroy my charming reputation."  
  
"Is sarcasm the only thing that ever escapes your mouth?" She breathed the question out, warmth mixing with the cold, forming fog out of her mouth. She placed her hands on her hoodie's pockets.  
  
"That alongside a bit of sardonic humor." He placed his beanie further down on his head, "You should see me when I'm writing."  
  
"I think there's some solid chance that your professor thinks you are a psychopath."  
  
This caused a shrug from him, "As long as you're fine living with a Donnie Darko, I won't murder anyone under our roof."  
  
"I won't dial the police, then." She offered him a quick smile.  
  
"Anyways," Jughead said, fidgeting with his hands, "How does an I-follow-my-schedule-like-the-Bible kind of girl like you end up in a situation like this?"  
  
"Oh," she mumbled, trying to look for an explanation "I was feeling a little under the weather and time just slipped past me."  
  
"University life, huh?" He gave her that half-smile chuckle of his, the one that tended to happen a lot around her (maybe around everyone) but that also seemed out of character for him.  
  
"It's doing wonders to my anxiety," She added to his remark, smiling up at him. As the five-minute walk was over, she took her key chain out of her pocket only to find herself shivering a little, enough to drop the keys.  
  
He took them from the floor and opened the door himself, letting her in first and closing behind both of them, giving her the keys. The heat of the building was usually welcomed, but tonight it felt a little unbearable. She took off her hoodie and a shiver ran up her spine again. She hoped it wasn't so evident that she was a little sick, considering Alice Cooper's every-other-day phone call was scheduled for that night.  
  
They climbed the stairs on silence and this time, she was opening their apartment's door for him. As soon as she entered, her phone rang with the special ring tone she had chosen for her mother. God help her if she didn’t answer the call. She let it ring four seconds, enough to get a weird look from Jughead but not long enough for him to make a remark, then she picked up with a smile.  
  
"Hi, mom." She said, walking around the room. It usually took her mom a few minutes a week to ruin everything she had been building. She got another look from Jughead, a knowing look now. Somehow, he seemed to notice her change of attitude whenever Alice called.  
  
"Betty, how's the weather treating you? I heard there's been a cold wave in New York." Her mother's cold voice was anything but welcoming.  
  
"It's fine. The apartment's warm and everything."  
  
"About the apartment, you are not struggling with the payment, right? How's your roommate treating you?" It was as if she was looking for a defect in her daughter's new life, anything that would make her force Betty back to Riverdale.  
  
"I'm not, the rent is alright. And Jughead-" She eyed at him, already on the living room's sofa, sitting in front of his laptop whilst typing his life away. "He's a great roommate."  
  
"I am still not sure about this shared apartment thing. We could've helped you pay one for yourself ."   
Betty wanted to hang up, leave it behind. This was the part she wanted to escape the most yet she still found herself stuck. She replied shortly saying, "I'm fine sharing, mom. And it would be throwing money away to rent somewhere for only me, considering this apartment is much bigger than any other and it's all comfortable."  
  
"Alright," her mother finally agreed, if only for this night. She thought, after a few seconds of silence, that that was it for the day, that they would say their goodbyes and call it a night; but her mom added, "Have you been taking your medication? Have you been eating healthy? You know, junk food is so easy to get surrounded by fast food restaurants, but you need to keep your body line."  
  
Her mind wandered to the image of the pizza leftovers in the fridge and as her stomach rumbled, she said, "Yes, mom. I've been following the schedule for the pills and I've been using the cookbook you got me."  
  
"That's great, Elizabeth. Now, get yourself some sleep. And remember-" Her mother was about to finish, but Betty knew what was waiting for her, so she finished instead.  
  
"To be perfect. I know." Then, she heard the line go dead.  
  
Without a "Goodnight", with no "I love you", but a reminder to be everything everyone else wanted her to be.  
  
She set the phone down and, avoiding Jughead eyes, headed for the kitchen, putting on the kettle, doubling the usual amount of water because Jughead would, obviously, want a cup of coffee after he heard the kettle go off, even if it was already midnight. She took a mint tea from the cupboard and sat on top of the table, which wasn't very much lady-like, but she enjoyed it. Just in front of her, a window led her vision to the street almost seventy feet below her. Compared to the city of lights, Riverdale was nothing if not a grumpy grandfather. Riverdale was the usual white picket fence suburban area where adults went to get stable quiet lives when they got bored of this. An area meant to raise kids very much like herself, who dream of more, of this place. Riverdale had once been that, an escapable place, a place to either grow up in or be old in, nothing in between.   
  
That, until it drowned in malice.  
  
The past followed her, she thought, as the past often does, like an ex-boyfriend somehow never quite getting the hint  
  
She got so caught up in her own thoughts it took Jughead to take her away from them.  
  
"Does anyone-" He stopped himself, rethinking, "Apart from you, of course, ever sleep in this place?"  
  
She turned herself to face him. He was already pouring coffee in a cup, plain black because he just had to follow his aesthetic.  
  
She shook her head, "I'm a goddamned walking miracle."  
  
"Isn't it past your bedtime?" He asked, placing himself a little nearer. She turned herself back to the window and he gave her a cup. She took a sip, surprising herself that the mint tea had the perfect amount of sugar needed. Stalker-ish, she thought.  
  
"I'm feeling a little bit rebellious," She said, looking at him. "Am I interrupting your writing solo time?"  
  
He let out a sigh, "Extremely. I have grown interested in watching you sleep, seems to work like some kind of charm in my writing."  
  
After the weird look he got from her, he rolled his eyes and corrected himself, "You looked flushed, not in a good way. You're sure you're not sick?"  
  
"I'm just having a migraine, that's all. I'll wake up better." She shook him off like she was used to, and for a second she felt like she was back in her house with her family, always worrying for others, never for herself.  
  
He placed a hand on her forehead, frowning. "No wonder you're so out of it. You're as warm as the fucking sun."  
  
She set the empty cup down, "You're overreacting. I'll just get myself to bed and I'll be better off by morning. You'll see."


	3. The Past

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (you guys wanted bonding moments, so there you have it)  
> in this universe, Jason's murder doesn't happen, so Jason and Polly end up being engaged and living together in the outsides of Riverdale with the twins (so the escape plan actually worked), Archie and Betty dated in their senior year but broke up before she left, and Veronica didn't leave NYC and she'll pop up soon.

Her dreams were a blur of memories that she hoped she had run away from when she had come to New York City. Her mind went to Riverdale (in all its glorified sickness), and to high school (where she had been invisible except for one person, but that was over).  
She woke up sweating.   
There was no morning to be better by the next day because she woke up by noon. She didn't have work, nor homework for the matter, but essays and news didn't get read on their own, so she was pissed at herself while she showered. She decided it was a yoga-pants-and-oversized-sweaters kind of day as she looked out of the window and met the icy blue-grey skies that served as a warning of rain. A lazy Saturday to lock oneself away from the world with a book, in a cozy room with scented candles and fairy lights.   
Surprisingly, after close to twelve hours of sleep, she still felt shitty.   
Jughead wasn't even up yet or he didn't show any signs of life, but knowing him, he would smell toast and coffee and he would be right up and wailing his tail like a starved alley cat.   
She went to the kitchen to put on the kettle and stumbled upon (crashed into) someone, that someone being a six-feet-tall Jughead Jones.   
"Sorry, I..." She stumbled stupidly upon her own words, cursing herself, "I didn't see you there."   
"Am I too distracting?" He joked, but when he didn't get a reply, he frowned. "Penny for your thoughts."  
"Rough night," she mumbled, pouring coffee in a cup, "But not as rough as yours, what's up with the dark circles?" She chuckled a bit, taking a sip. It was bitter but refreshing.  
"Betty, dearest, you should take a look at yourself," He said, smiling, "Also, who said I went to sleep?"  
She looked at her with a deadpanned expression, realizing he was wearing the same clothes of the day before, "How are you still alive?"  
"I'm not. Dead inside counts too." He grinned, sitting down on the kitchen's table, laptop in front of him, taking a sip of his coffee. She opened the fridge to see if there was anything left for her to eat considering none of them had made a visit to the market since the week before. She was left shocked with a full fridge in front of herself.  
"I thought we were out of..." She considered her words before finishing, "Everything."  
"I made a quick run. Wouldn't want to starve a sick girl to death, right?" He said, typing and not really looking up, but not ignoring her. She liked that part of Jughead, how he could either split his concentration in two or lock the entire world away to focus on only one thing of major importance. She poured coffee into an obnoxiously pink cup that her sister had given to her as a farewell gift.  
"You went out and voluntarily spoke to a cashier?" She asked, putting on a confused tone and trying not to laugh. She sat down in front of him, more like collapsed tiredly, taking a sip from the warm miraculous liquid.  
He looked at her smiling, "Auto-service. I didn't think it wise to interact with a human over so little hours of sleep."  
She rolled her eyes, "You should take a power nap instead of drinking unholy large quantities of coffee."   
"Who are you to be talking about self-care, Betty I-died-for-twelve-hours-straight Cooper?" He was looking at her now, all blue eyes and mischevious smile, and it was comfortable in a way being stared at shouldn't have been. He stood up, opening a cupboard to take something from it, Betty wasn't sure. She opted against turning herself to look at him.   
"Hey, points to me, I actually took your advice," she stated, wrapping her fingers around her cup as she welcomed the warmth.  
Jughead placed cup noodles "hearty chicken flavored" and a Dayquil pill in front of her only to be dismissed by her tired voice, "I'm not hungry."  
He faked a hurt look, placing his hand over his heart, "I put so much work on pouring hot water into that foam cup!" He sat down in front of his laptop again, not bothering to look at her while he said, "You are going to eat that chicken soup and go back to bed or, so help me God, I will drown you in NyQuil.”  
She drank the soup slowly, looking at him with hatred every once in a while.   
Then, she went to bed (or she was dragged if the truth was asked). She tried to read and study, but even after she was too unfocused to do anything. She found herself fighting sleep until she just gave into it.   
\--------------------------------------------------------  
When he had escaped his father's home, he had had a couple of granola bars, a water bottle, and a grand total of $3000, all of which had been either stolen from numerous drunk nights with his father or bought with the money he had been saving since he was twelve (That was probably enough to live off of for however long he needed until he found a job in New York City, right?). He had only had one thing on his mind that night; with his NYU acceptance letter in hand and his eighteen years of age, he was going to be free.   
At first, there were a couple of motels here and there, as cheap as possible. He had spent his summer jumping from place to place, hunting for an apartment's cheap rent, a job, and a place where he could finally feel at home. That, he thought, had been a lot nicer than being back in the South Side. He was familiar with the feeling of solitude and homeless, but the feeling of looking for somewhere to call home, looking for a way not to be lonely, had filled him with something he had always been looking for; hope.   
Hope came as a column on a Newspaper he'd found in the room he had been staying. Hope came as an apartment miraculously being cheaply rented in Mercer St, New York. Hope came as a shared apartment right on the corner of his university. Hope came as Betty Cooper.   
Maybe if his father could see him, if he looked at him while he was sober, he would say something, pointing at how much he had grown over the past couple of months. Sadly, he couldn't risk seeing his father, not when he finally felt okay. He had promised to wait, to go back to his family once he had something solid to be proud of, a reason to live that wasn't just them.   
So there he was, with a different address, a different phone number, a different life, but still himself.   
There he was sitting quietly, the sound of a ringing cellphone in the background as he decided whether he should let it ring or answer, taking notice of the fact that he didn't want Betty Cooper to wake up, considering how sick she had looked before. He picked the cellphone from the plug it was charging from in the living room before sitting down in his usual writing spot and answering the call.   
"Betty?" He heard from the other line, a nostalgic yet worried tone coming from a boy who was probably their age.   
"No, this is her roommate." He answered, adding, "Can I help you?"   
"It's just, she hasn't been answering my calls for a while and I was getting sick worried, thinking something could've happened to her." The boy must've realized he was rambling, hence his later words, "Sorry, why do you have her phone?"   
He opted against telling the paranoid boy about his roommate's current state, instead choosing a white lie. "She went on a grocery run and left it charging. Should I take a message for her?"  
"Just, tell her to call me soon." The boy replied.  
"Do I get a name or is that all?" Jughead asked, sarcastically. He kept on typing his weekly short story on his laptop.   
"Right, sorry." The boy said, "It's Archie Andrews."  
"Okay, Archie, I'll tell her." He hung up, no other word, and he heard shoes shuffling on the ceramic tiles, "Did I wake you up?"  
About four hours had passed since he had sent Betty back to bed, and as he rose his vision away from his screen and to the hallway, he saw her tired eyes, flushed cheeks, and red nose, with a fashionable outfit composed of pastel pink pajamas, an oversized wool cardigan, and bunny slippers.   
She shook her head, "I just wanted some tea. Do you want something?"   
"Some coffee sounds fine." He said, standing up and following her to the dining/kitchen room. 

"A guy named Archie called you," he said, as they waited for the kettle to boil. He saw as she tensed and then added, "I said you'd gone grocery shopping. He asked for you to call him back."  
Her fists were clenched tightly enough to turn white, he noticed, and her eyebrows were knitted, eyes glued on the floor.   
"My sister must have given him my number," she mumbled, maybe to him or to herself, he wasn't so sure. When the kettle went off, she straightened her back and poured them their respective drinks. Her hands were shaking, he noticed, when she handed him his coffee.   
"I didn't know you had a sister. Is she older than you?" He asked, trying to break the ice. Along the month they had lived together, they had talked about a lot of trivial things; the weather, university, how taxes worked, random things like that. Somehow, they had gotten along quite nicely for a month without picking details of who they were before. Somehow, he had befriended her without knowing who she was but rather how she was, and he was fairly comfortable around her just like that. He certainly had not woken up that morning ready to uncover a tragic back story.   
"She is. She lives back in Riverdale with her fiancé and her pair of twins, which of course my mother doesn't really approve. It's a long story-" She stopped herself, maybe thinking 'why the hell am I telling this to you', but she just corrected herself, "Well, no. It's rather short. Just really complicated."  
He shrugged, "Complicated families are what most books are made of." He realized he'd gotten her to smile, which was a lot considering how distressed she'd looked after the phone call. "If you don't want to talk to this Archie, I could always intimidate him via phone."   
"Don't worry about it. He's just..." She was looking for words and, being a writer like her, he knew how frustrating it was to describe something that was your own. "We used to be best friends and neighbors. We had a thing during our senior year but something happened and things can never be what they used to be, you know?"   
He nodded, actually understanding the abstract feeling she was trying to project.   
"He just got bored of me, but I guess he still cares a little bit." She mumbled, sadly, not looking up to him. Her hair was loose on her shoulders and a lock hid her eyes from him.   
Something inside of him connected with her there, a mutual feeling of loneliness, longing for a home, for a friend. Something inside of him made him step closer to her, close enough to reach out and tuck that lock behind her ear, his hand touching her warm skin. "He would have to be stupid not to care," He said, quietly, and added, "You're burning up, no wonder you're so out of it. Come on now, you need to keep resting."   
His words echoed in his head as he walked her to her room. He would have to be stupid not to care about her, he thought, because she sure as hell is worth caring for.


End file.
